CHAPTER XI. SECULAR INSTRUCTION DISTINCT FROM SECULARISM
"A mariner must have his eye on the rock and the sand as
well as upon the North Star."
—Maxim of the Sea.
IT IS time now to point out, what many never seem to understand, that Secular instruction is entirely distinct from Secularism. In my earlier days the term "scientific" was the distressing word in connexion with education, but the trouble of later years is with the word "Secular." Theological critics run on the "rock" there.
Many persons regard Secular teaching with distrust, thinking it to be the same as Secularism. Secular instruction is known by the sign of separateness. It means knowledge given apart from theology. Secular instruction comprises a set of rules for the guidance of industry, commerce, science, and art. Secular teaching is as distinct from theology as a poem from a sermon. A man may be a mathematician, an architect, a lawyer, a musician, or a surgeon, and be a
Christian all the same; as Faraday was both a chemist and a devout Sandemanian; as Buckland was a geologist as well as a Dean. But if theology be mixed up with professional knowledge, there will be muddle-headedness.* At a separate time, theology can be taught, and any learner will have a clearer and more commanding knowledge of Christianity by its being distinctive in his mind. Secular instruction neither assails Christianity nor prejudices the learner against it; any more than sculpture assails jurisprudence, or than geometry prejudices the mind against music. If the Secular instructor made it a point, as he ought to do, to inculcate elementary ideas of morality, he would confine himself to explaining how far truth and duty have sanctions in considerations purely human—leaving it to teachers of religion to supplement at another time and place, what they believe to be further and higher sanctions.
* Edward Baines (afterwards Sir Edward) was the greatest
opponent in his day, of national schools and Secular
instruction, sent his sou to a Secular school, because he
wanted him to be clever as well as Christian. He was both as
I well know.
Secular instruction implies that the proper business of the school-teacher is to impart a knowledge of the duties of this world; and the proper business of chapel and church is to explain the duties relevant to another world, which can only be done in a secondhand way by the school-teacher. The wonder is that the pride of the minister does not incite him to keep his own proper work in his own hands, and protest against the school-teacher meddling with it. By doing so he would augment his own dignity and the distinctiveness of his office.
By keeping each kind of knowledge apart, a man learns both, more easily and more effectually. Secular training is better for the scholar and safer for the State; and better for the priest if he has a faith that can stand by itself.
If the reader does not distrust it as a paradox, he will assent that the Secular is distinct from Secularism, as distinct as an act is distinct from its motive. Secular teaching comprises a set of rules of instruction in trade, business, and professional knowledge. Secularism furnishes a set of principles for the ethical conduct of life. Secular instruction is far more limited in its range than Secularism which defends secular pursuits against theology, where theology attacks them or obstructs them. But pure Secular knowledge is confined to its own pursuit, and does not come in contact with theology any more than architecture comes in contact with preaching.
A man may be a shareholder in a gas company or a waterworks, a house owner, a landlord, a farmer, or a workman. All these are secular pursuits, and he who follows them may consult only his own interest. But if he be a Secularist, he will consider not only his own interest, but, as far as he can, the welfare of the community or the world, as his action or example may tell for the good of universal society. He will do "his best," not as Mr. Ruskin says, "the best of an ass," but "the best of an intelligent man." In every act he will put his conscience and character with a view so to discharge the duties of this life as to merit another, if there be one. Just as a Christian seeks to serve God, a Secularist seeks to serve man. This it is to be a Secularist. The idea of this service is what Secularism puts into his mind. Professor Clifford exclaimed: "The Kingdom of God has come—when comes the Kingdom of man?" A Secularist is one who hastens the coming of this kingdom: which must be agreeable to heaven if the people of this world are to occupy the mansions there.